I played Mario Kart Wii for the first time this past weekend when I was at my cousin's house, and found it pretty enjoyable.
I almost grabbed it that night at the store but then I was like "Wait, this is still $50."
I never really thought about it until then, but even though the console itself is cheaper, the Wii has the potential to be way more expensive than other systems considering 90% of the good games on it are from Nintendo, and Nintendo never lowers their damn prices. Super Mario Galaxy 1 is still $50 at a brick-and-mortar. Bayonetta and Mass Effect 2 are $20 a pop. That's craziness.
It's part of what makes Nintendo so much damn money especially this gen. Not only do they have 15 million sellers that sell for years after they came out but that the vast majority of those titles were sold at full retail price.
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Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
I played Mario Kart Wii for the first time this past weekend when I was at my cousin's house, and found it pretty enjoyable.
I almost grabbed it that night at the store but then I was like "Wait, this is still $50."
I never really thought about it until then, but even though the console itself is cheaper, the Wii has the potential to be way more expensive than other systems considering 90% of the good games on it are from Nintendo, and Nintendo never lowers their damn prices. Super Mario Galaxy 1 is still $50 at a brick-and-mortar. Bayonetta and Mass Effect 2 are $20 a pop. That's craziness.
yeah but nintendo can certainly get away with it. their game model is far removed from the whole flavor of the week approach gamers tend to have on the 360/ps3. they did used to have a players choice line though back in on the GC. that was when their software wasn't selling nearly as well though.
i do really wish they'd bring back players choice. its kind of odd that they stopped implementing it.
Man, more and more publishes are starting to fret about the low prices of cellphone games. I have no idea if they'll cause a general erosion of what people are willing to pay for games, or if people are fine paying different amounts depending on the platform.
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
edited February 2011
The price of games should come down, anyway. 29-39e per game, charge the rest in DLC.
Man, more and more publishes are starting to fret about the low prices of cellphone games. I have no idea if they'll cause a general erosion of what people are willing to pay for games, or if people are fine paying different amounts depending on the platform.
For price erosion, I'd be more concerned about services like Steam.
I'd be happier if they sold Single Player & Multiplayer content separately. I love me some Haloes and Goldeneyes but I'm barely, if at all, gonna touch the multiplayer component of those games.
Man, more and more publishes are starting to fret about the low prices of cellphone games. I have no idea if they'll cause a general erosion of what people are willing to pay for games, or if people are fine paying different amounts depending on the platform.
For price erosion, I'd be more concerned about services like Steam.
Seriously. Wouldn't the fact that most of the games that you can pick up for $1 are garbage reinforce the notion that you need to pay more for a quality product most of the time? Steam will often offer the same games you could get in a brick and mortar for much less.
I do agree that some games that are priced at $60 (just because that's the price for a new game) should probably be priced lower from the get-go.
Man, more and more publishes are starting to fret about the low prices of cellphone games. I have no idea if they'll cause a general erosion of what people are willing to pay for games, or if people are fine paying different amounts depending on the platform.
For price erosion, I'd be more concerned about services like Steam.
Steam is a really interesting study. Steam sales (and other sales / price drops) are usually based on time since release. So you're paying a premium to play the game right at release compared to waiting for sales, and for a lot of video game consumers (from what we've heard about sales in the first two weeks, it seems to be the vast majority), they're willing to pay that premium. And if you're interested in online community (either via multiplayer or discussion through forums like these), you're much more likely to find an active community at release than 6-9 months down the line when the price drops, so you'll buy it closer to release. Yeah, it's cheaper later on, but there's not nearly as much online activity. I think the potential worry about Steam is if it's converting those who normally buy right away to being more patient and waiting for sales (which I do now for PC games). I don't think it's doing all that much converting, but without the data, we really have no idea. And don't forget that Steam sales also get people to buy games that they wouldn't at full price, which is revenue for the company that they wouldn't have seen any other way.
But walking in ghostform to your corpse is NOT a good mechanic. Is that fun? Backtracing your corpse?
Death in general is not a good mechanic. Is that fun? Playing an entire level over again because you made one mistake?
Death is a good concept because it changes the entire experience, the entire way you play a game, especially in the first go and especially if the gameworld is constantly changing it keeps up the challenge forever.
Exactly. You try hard not to die in WoW so you don't have to take a lot of durability damage and take a lot of time walking back. It changes the way you play the game. If you couldn't die, you'd just go all out every time and kill every boss easily.
Of course not everybody is manly enough to accept charcter death as a given possibility. So they amass hoards of precious loot until the next contend patch comes around to totally devaluate it... no... thanks.
These two sentences don't really follow very well...I think you're saying that people aren't manly enough to accept death, so they try to equip better things so that they don't die? Uh, isn't that the point of nearly every game, to become stronger? In hardcore modes do you always equip the worst possible equipment in the hopes that you'll die in order to prove you're manly?
Again... it depends on the concept. If its making you rerun the same stuff again death is not a good mechanic. Well, it works for SHUMPS and platformers because there it revolves mostly around dexterity, but also those that branch and reduce repeditiveness are better.
Generally spoken, games wich create a different scenario each game are better because those challenge creativity not pure memorization.
Thats why RTS games are so successful. Thats why Counterstrike is so successful (or Left 4 Dead). Strategy games, business simulations. Because those generate new flow of game each new session (well, the good ones). And roguelikes.
If you take an RTS for example... yes, its fun to pit armies against each other again and again. Its mad fun. The more diversity and tactics aviable, the better, so the flow of a game can change in the blink of an eye.
Death, or in this case defeat or victory make the game go. It works in chess and it works here and it works great. If you think about it chess has only one "level" or map. And it never gets old. People play it since hundreds of years and will do so in thousands. So yeah, thats a good concept, definetly.
Death in WoW is just a penalty. Its annoying but there is not really defeat. Just frustration. If people are frustrated enough they give up (well, that and damage to gear... another penalty in gold - gametime if you are really honest). I think this is really a weak spot of WoW. Its intentionally generating frustration.
And in regards to become stronger... thats the entire reward in WoW. Getting better stats. It is a focus in most games but its a sidegoal. The victory condition should be victory. And there you have the core of the problem. In WoW people do not run instances to beat them and be glad about it. They do it to empower their character. And they do it so often that the entire fun dies. Victory becomes meaningless. Even boring. Thats why most players don't stick around if its taking a bit longer. They hate it. The only thing that counts is getting their hands on a certain piece of equipment. And thats not fun, that is greed. And since greed is a negative emotion people tend to freak out, cheat on loot and generally behave like asshats. Instead of generating a friendly atmosphere its actually generating a hostile atmosphere.
I have seen it happen a hundred times and at one point i realized its just disgusting and not worth my time.
How many goddam possibilities are possible for loot distribution in WoW? And why? Because people think if they don't get something they start blaming the loot distribution system.
The journey is the reward. Or that is what it should be like. You should have fun playing the game.
In a Diablo 2 hardcore game i also aim for stat increase, of course. But i do it because i am tryin to survive, to beat the game. You can not beat a MMORPG. You notice how hard it becomes to get the best gear. Thats intentionally because you are supposed to keep trying and paying. Thats the reason why they give one usable piece of loot to a 25 player raid group on a randomized basis.
Because there is no other goal besides gear. And if people manage to get there they make better items, put out another expansion... the works. And thats why death is not working. If people would loose that precious gear... impossible.
I consider that concept severely flawed. In the low levels where loot is abundand and people are friendly and forgiving its great, but the final result is unbearable for me. And not only in WoW i might add.
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Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
edited February 2011
The best example of how death can impact a person's gaming experience is the Fire Emblem series.
If your soldiers die in battle, no matter how much you've worked on them, they stay dead, as in dead dead.
It really makes you carefully plan out your moves and attacks.
Farrell would like to see a lower initial retail price point so that more people can buy a particular title, and then that allows a publisher to sell moderately priced DLC to larger audience. "When we launched [MX vs. ATV] at $59.99, we'd do some units, and then when we brought the price down to the mass market-friendly price of $39.99, it would just pop," he said. "So the thinking this time is, let's initially launch at $39.99 -- it's a very robust game, very high quality, so this is not about trying to get a secondary title out. It's an AAA title, at that price point, but then with a series of DLC so people can extend their experience. We think this is the future of gaming. We think that's the way games are gonna go in the long term."
reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
edited February 2011
Personally, I don't play games to "achieve victory", I play them to have fun.
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Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
edited February 2011
In most cases, it doesn't really effect the game in a negative way if there isn't really a live system. Many people like to blast Nintendo for continuing to insist on using lives and 1-ups and such. But I like having them around still. Mario wouldn't be the same without the 1-Up jingle.
But in other games like the Jak games or Ratchet & Clank having unlimited lives means I don't have to worry about the annoying continue screen and such.
Its only a game. Failing in a game is not a bad thing. Thats what keeps you hooked. If you like, try again. Was it fun enough to keep trying?
I happen to mostly agree with you, but trying to generalize that out to everyone fails remarkably. See: stats a few developers have released showing how few people actually complete games. Lots of people don't like to lose.
Loose is a different, almost as common word. You learn this in like primary school.
He also uses "its" in place of "it's".
BUUURRRN the witch!
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Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
edited February 2011
Since when are RTS games successful? With the exception of Blizzard RTS games, it's a pretty niche market. Or hell, strategy games for that matter. And business simulations? Really?
P.S. - Chess gets old. Chess gets old REALLY fast.
Yeah, possibly. But thats what makes a game. You can also loose a game and in that also rests motivation. To achive victory despite that.
That's fine when games are couple-hour affairs. My friends and I lost our first game of Pandemic the other day, and then we played again in won. Overall, a fun evening. Chess is a similar affair, with only very, very few games lasting more than half-an-hour.
When games last dozens, hundreds of hours,* though? Fuck that shit, man - I'm not restarting my entire game experience because JoeBlow the healer didn't read the fight notes and got one-shotted by the boss in Dungeon #27, resulting in the rest of us wiping.
And that's not even considering the, "Ooh - lag spike! I died!" situations.
* You might be tempted, here, to refer to tabletop roleplaying games as a game in which permanent death occurs and which can involve dozens or hundreds of hours of time invested in a character. I'll point out that, in many cases, DMs will tailor events to your specific party make-up - if you aren't running a party that is capable of dealing with lots of undead, you'll mysteriously never encounter lots of undead, and if you do, it'll be in the context of "Ooh! Scary - run away!" Moreover, should you die, you do not start over as a level 1 character with no money, items, or friends. You, somehow, come back into the game at a level roughly similar to the rest of the group with somewhat equivalent items, because starting over completely sucks.**
** Some DMs make you start over at 1st-level. These DMs also suck. And are poopyheads. And have no players.
Its only a game. Failing in a game is not a bad thing. Thats what keeps you hooked. If you like, try again. Was it fun enough to keep trying?
I happen to mostly agree with you, but trying to generalize that out to everyone fails remarkably. See: stats a few developers have released showing how few people actually complete games. Lots of people don't like to lose.
Yes, but like reVerse put it so fittingly... as long as they had a great time... who cares? Victory rests somewhere maybe. Some are completely open ended (Dwarf Fortress). The really good ones (the ones changing gameplay each session, a Master of Orion 2 for example) don't even end there. They make you replay the game over and over and keep it entertaining.
And the industry can't repeat the success in most cases (with a few notable exceptions here and there), because, sadly, they don't have a clue. They try to boil it down into statistics for their bookkeepers and don't realize they are killing the marked by overflooding it with carbon copies of concepts they know working, but with no idea why.
Coming up with new concepts is therefore incredibly hard for them. Think about the impact a Dune2 had. They are great at repackaging concepts, but new ones... rare. So very rare.
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Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
Since when are RTS games successful? With the exception of Blizzard RTS games, it's a pretty niche market. Or hell, strategy games for that matter. And business simulations? Really?
P.S. - Chess gets old. Chess gets old REALLY fast.
I think you could call Football Manager a business simulation and last I checked it was pretty damn popular.
Since when are RTS games successful? With the exception of Blizzard RTS games, it's a pretty niche market. Or hell, strategy games for that matter. And business simulations? Really?
P.S. - Chess gets old. Chess gets old REALLY fast.
I think you could call Football Manager a business simulation and last I checked it was pretty damn popular.
Business simulation isn't even really a genre. It's so generic. Several different genres have "business simulations", many of them vastly different
Yeah, possibly. But thats what makes a game. You can also loose a game and in that also rests motivation. To achive victory despite that.
That's fine when games are couple-hour affairs. My friends and I lost our first game of Pandemic the other day, and then we played again in won. Overall, a fun evening. Chess is a similar affair, with only very, very few games lasting more than half-an-hour.
When games last dozens, hundreds of hours,* though? Fuck that shit, man - I'm not restarting my entire game experience because JoeBlow the healer didn't read the fight notes and got one-shotted by the boss in Dungeon #27, resulting in the rest of us wiping.
And that's not even considering the, "Ooh - lag spike! I died!" situations.
* You might be tempted, here, to refer to tabletop roleplaying games as a game in which permanent death occurs and which can involve dozens or hundreds of hours of time invested in a character. I'll point out that, in many cases, DMs will tailor events to your specific party make-up - if you aren't running a party that is capable of dealing with lots of undead, you'll mysteriously never encounter lots of undead, and if you do, it'll be in the context of "Ooh! Scary - run away!" Moreover, should you die, you do not start over as a level 1 character with no money, items, or friends. You, somehow, come back into the game at a level roughly similar to the rest of the group with somewhat equivalent items, because starting over completely sucks.**
** Some DMs make you start over at 1st-level. These DMs also suck. And are poopyheads. And have no players.
You still assume a WoW character wich takes months to build. There is no need to starve players for weeks until a minimal stat upgrade happens. Thats what MMORPGs refer to as grind, and in this concept there is no use for extensive grinding, you can have nice and constant progress instead. So loosing a char is not as bad. Quite interestingly you get used to it pretty fast.
And the lagspike argument is a cheap excuse. I could also argue for somebody pouring a cup of coffee over the server where your char data is stored, but would you change a gameplay concept because of the possibility of technical problems? Please.
Regarding to the pen and paper example i can only say... if a group knows you will carry them through no matter how much they screw up that also breaks the game. The goal is not killing a group, of course, instead make it interesting. Mauling them to death is not the way to go, of course.
There comes a time when characters become powerful. Then its time to remove safety nets and ask the group if they are up to a challenge.
If they agree they can fail, of course. Everything else would be betreyal to the group. Just make sure they are aware of having to watch what they are doing from that point on.
And quite interestingly... i have never experienced anybody refusing.
Why do you think Gygax designed something like the Tomb of Horrors?
I actually have Dune 1. It's an... interesting game. It's like a combination of an RPG with the barest hints at being an RTS (though it was really more turn-based, it just presented it in a way that didn't make that fact stand out as much)
You still assume a WoW character wich takes months to build.
No, I'm assuming a game with persistent progression. WoW is merely one example.
And the lagspike argument is a cheap excuse. I could also argue for somebody pouring a cup of coffee over the server where your char data is stored, but would you change a gameplay concept because of the possibility of technical problems? Please.
Yes, actually. Any game whereing my progress can be irrevocably lost better damn well not cause it via technical fuck-ups. Since you cannot prevent technical fuckups, you better be damn careful how you implement your games' systems.
Mauling them to death is not the way to go, of course.
Yes - and live people are much better at this sort of thing than computers. Hence, tabletop roleplaying with a live DM works better at riding the razor edge of balance than a computer simulation of a tabletop roleplaying game.
Why do you think Gygax designed something like the Tomb of Horrors?
You really don't know what you're talking about, do you?
Tomb of Horrors was designed as a convention module. It was, explicitly, a one-off occurence, played with characters you'll never touch again, to see how far you could get in a couple hours of play. Tomb of Horrors is the equivalent of an RPG boardgame. It had, originally, no real place as part of an ongoing campaign, specifically because it is an unmitigated deathtrap.
And, yes, I've actually talked with Gary himself about this, before he died, so my source is the man himself. (EN World boards, if you want to go looking for it.)
Yes, actually. Any game whereing my progress can be irrevocably lost better damn well not cause it via technical fuck-ups. Since you cannot prevent technical fuckups, you better be damn careful how you implement your games' systems.
No, because shit happens. You don't eliminate a good concept and replace it with a crappy concept because shit could happen. You hope for the best... and in most cases... hey... its not death because of technical problems. However that is a prefered excuse for fucking up. Seriously... cats are much, much worse than lagspikes. Not to mention girlfriends or parents insisting on the trash being carried down RIGHT NOW ^^
Why do you think Gygax designed something like the Tomb of Horrors?
You really don't know what you're talking about, do you?
Tomb of Horrors was designed as a convention module. It was, explicitly, a one-off occurence, played with characters you'll never touch again, to see how far you could get in a couple hours of play. Tomb of Horrors is the equivalent of an RPG boardgame. It had, originally, no real place as part of an ongoing campaign, specifically because it is an unmitigated deathtrap.
And, yes, I've actually talked with Gary himself about this, before he died, so my source is the man himself. (EN World boards, if you want to go looking for it.)
Whoa, hold your horses ^^
Its correct that it was created as a convention module. Where people meet who love D&D.
Why the hell would they enter a deathtrap if they would not like the idea?
And the answer: they do. They really do. Its great fun. Because its interesting to see how far you get.
Now... you really can't run it twice because then you already know parts. Its something special, not to be used lightheartly and not to be wasted. The man is dead. Its a one shot setting. Use it wisely.
What would it be like to have a ever changing deathtrap?
Enter roguelikes. And if you are up to a challenge computers make great DM's. They are absoulutely fair. And here the question of a practicable concept and balance get raised.
Of course... only if you can handle the pressure of being really challenged and your char might die.
Its just a game.
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Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
This gives some interesting examples of earlier RTS titles. Not all of them have every element of what we'd consider a "modern RTS" but they all laid the groundwork before Dune 2.
That being said, Dune 2 only laid the groundwork for what was to follow. Just as an example - WarCraft 2 invented Fog of War, a standard in all modern RTS games. Genres are always borrowing from something. Even original ideas are never *completely* original. Pretty much every single game is innovating on something that has been done before.
I actually have Dune 1. It's an... interesting game. It's like a combination of an RPG with the barest hints at being an RTS (though it was really more turn-based, it just presented it in a way that didn't make that fact stand out as much)
It's actually pretty fun too.
Dune 1 was awesome. Nothing at all like the also fun Dune 2.
The problem with the RTS genre is that it didn't make the transition to consoles like the FPS genre. I actually have a few RTS games that were released on the Sega Genesis that work just fine.
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It's part of what makes Nintendo so much damn money especially this gen. Not only do they have 15 million sellers that sell for years after they came out but that the vast majority of those titles were sold at full retail price.
It's still ongoing in Japan.
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For price erosion, I'd be more concerned about services like Steam.
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I'd be all for a single/multi split
It is.
It's why I have to pay for 40 extra channels on my satellite tv plan to watch the 2 channels I actually care about.
If we all only bought half a game, then publishers would only sell half as much.
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Seriously. Wouldn't the fact that most of the games that you can pick up for $1 are garbage reinforce the notion that you need to pay more for a quality product most of the time? Steam will often offer the same games you could get in a brick and mortar for much less.
I do agree that some games that are priced at $60 (just because that's the price for a new game) should probably be priced lower from the get-go.
Steam is a really interesting study. Steam sales (and other sales / price drops) are usually based on time since release. So you're paying a premium to play the game right at release compared to waiting for sales, and for a lot of video game consumers (from what we've heard about sales in the first two weeks, it seems to be the vast majority), they're willing to pay that premium. And if you're interested in online community (either via multiplayer or discussion through forums like these), you're much more likely to find an active community at release than 6-9 months down the line when the price drops, so you'll buy it closer to release. Yeah, it's cheaper later on, but there's not nearly as much online activity. I think the potential worry about Steam is if it's converting those who normally buy right away to being more patient and waiting for sales (which I do now for PC games). I don't think it's doing all that much converting, but without the data, we really have no idea. And don't forget that Steam sales also get people to buy games that they wouldn't at full price, which is revenue for the company that they wouldn't have seen any other way.
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Again... it depends on the concept. If its making you rerun the same stuff again death is not a good mechanic. Well, it works for SHUMPS and platformers because there it revolves mostly around dexterity, but also those that branch and reduce repeditiveness are better.
Generally spoken, games wich create a different scenario each game are better because those challenge creativity not pure memorization.
Thats why RTS games are so successful. Thats why Counterstrike is so successful (or Left 4 Dead). Strategy games, business simulations. Because those generate new flow of game each new session (well, the good ones). And roguelikes.
If you take an RTS for example... yes, its fun to pit armies against each other again and again. Its mad fun. The more diversity and tactics aviable, the better, so the flow of a game can change in the blink of an eye.
Death, or in this case defeat or victory make the game go. It works in chess and it works here and it works great. If you think about it chess has only one "level" or map. And it never gets old. People play it since hundreds of years and will do so in thousands. So yeah, thats a good concept, definetly.
Death in WoW is just a penalty. Its annoying but there is not really defeat. Just frustration. If people are frustrated enough they give up (well, that and damage to gear... another penalty in gold - gametime if you are really honest). I think this is really a weak spot of WoW. Its intentionally generating frustration.
And in regards to become stronger... thats the entire reward in WoW. Getting better stats. It is a focus in most games but its a sidegoal. The victory condition should be victory. And there you have the core of the problem. In WoW people do not run instances to beat them and be glad about it. They do it to empower their character. And they do it so often that the entire fun dies. Victory becomes meaningless. Even boring. Thats why most players don't stick around if its taking a bit longer. They hate it. The only thing that counts is getting their hands on a certain piece of equipment. And thats not fun, that is greed. And since greed is a negative emotion people tend to freak out, cheat on loot and generally behave like asshats. Instead of generating a friendly atmosphere its actually generating a hostile atmosphere.
I have seen it happen a hundred times and at one point i realized its just disgusting and not worth my time.
How many goddam possibilities are possible for loot distribution in WoW? And why? Because people think if they don't get something they start blaming the loot distribution system.
The journey is the reward. Or that is what it should be like. You should have fun playing the game.
In a Diablo 2 hardcore game i also aim for stat increase, of course. But i do it because i am tryin to survive, to beat the game. You can not beat a MMORPG. You notice how hard it becomes to get the best gear. Thats intentionally because you are supposed to keep trying and paying. Thats the reason why they give one usable piece of loot to a 25 player raid group on a randomized basis.
Because there is no other goal besides gear. And if people manage to get there they make better items, put out another expansion... the works. And thats why death is not working. If people would loose that precious gear... impossible.
I consider that concept severely flawed. In the low levels where loot is abundand and people are friendly and forgiving its great, but the final result is unbearable for me. And not only in WoW i might add.
If your soldiers die in battle, no matter how much you've worked on them, they stay dead, as in dead dead.
It really makes you carefully plan out your moves and attacks.
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Yeah, possibly. But thats what makes a game. You can also loose a game and in that also rests motivation. To achive victory despite that.
Its only a game. Failing in a game is not a bad thing. Thats what keeps you hooked. If you like, try again. Was it fun enough to keep trying?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLMFybclOJM
This was THQ's idea a couple of months ago.
http://www.industrygamers.com/news/thq-ceo-60-price-point-is-keeping-people-out-of-gaming/
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/
I write about video games and stuff. It is fun. Sometimes.
But in other games like the Jak games or Ratchet & Clank having unlimited lives means I don't have to worry about the annoying continue screen and such.
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A glorious selection of the finest games on bloody R4 discs. :x
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I happen to mostly agree with you, but trying to generalize that out to everyone fails remarkably. See: stats a few developers have released showing how few people actually complete games. Lots of people don't like to lose.
Lose.
Loose is a different, almost as common word. You learn this in like primary school.
Man, I really, really hope Nintendo has that shit nailed down with the 3DS so I can laugh at these folks in the near future.
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He also uses "its" in place of "it's".
BUUURRRN the witch!
P.S. - Chess gets old. Chess gets old REALLY fast.
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That's fine when games are couple-hour affairs. My friends and I lost our first game of Pandemic the other day, and then we played again in won. Overall, a fun evening. Chess is a similar affair, with only very, very few games lasting more than half-an-hour.
When games last dozens, hundreds of hours,* though? Fuck that shit, man - I'm not restarting my entire game experience because JoeBlow the healer didn't read the fight notes and got one-shotted by the boss in Dungeon #27, resulting in the rest of us wiping.
And that's not even considering the, "Ooh - lag spike! I died!" situations.
* You might be tempted, here, to refer to tabletop roleplaying games as a game in which permanent death occurs and which can involve dozens or hundreds of hours of time invested in a character. I'll point out that, in many cases, DMs will tailor events to your specific party make-up - if you aren't running a party that is capable of dealing with lots of undead, you'll mysteriously never encounter lots of undead, and if you do, it'll be in the context of "Ooh! Scary - run away!" Moreover, should you die, you do not start over as a level 1 character with no money, items, or friends. You, somehow, come back into the game at a level roughly similar to the rest of the group with somewhat equivalent items, because starting over completely sucks.**
** Some DMs make you start over at 1st-level. These DMs also suck. And are poopyheads. And have no players.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Yes, but like reVerse put it so fittingly... as long as they had a great time... who cares? Victory rests somewhere maybe. Some are completely open ended (Dwarf Fortress). The really good ones (the ones changing gameplay each session, a Master of Orion 2 for example) don't even end there. They make you replay the game over and over and keep it entertaining.
And the industry can't repeat the success in most cases (with a few notable exceptions here and there), because, sadly, they don't have a clue. They try to boil it down into statistics for their bookkeepers and don't realize they are killing the marked by overflooding it with carbon copies of concepts they know working, but with no idea why.
Coming up with new concepts is therefore incredibly hard for them. Think about the impact a Dune2 had. They are great at repackaging concepts, but new ones... rare. So very rare.
Happens in any field not just gaming. If I had to describe the human race to someone (thing?) else I'd probably include this sentence somewhere.
It's always easier to change a known thing.
I think you could call Football Manager a business simulation and last I checked it was pretty damn popular.
Business simulation isn't even really a genre. It's so generic. Several different genres have "business simulations", many of them vastly different
You still assume a WoW character wich takes months to build. There is no need to starve players for weeks until a minimal stat upgrade happens. Thats what MMORPGs refer to as grind, and in this concept there is no use for extensive grinding, you can have nice and constant progress instead. So loosing a char is not as bad. Quite interestingly you get used to it pretty fast.
And the lagspike argument is a cheap excuse. I could also argue for somebody pouring a cup of coffee over the server where your char data is stored, but would you change a gameplay concept because of the possibility of technical problems? Please.
Regarding to the pen and paper example i can only say... if a group knows you will carry them through no matter how much they screw up that also breaks the game. The goal is not killing a group, of course, instead make it interesting. Mauling them to death is not the way to go, of course.
There comes a time when characters become powerful. Then its time to remove safety nets and ask the group if they are up to a challenge.
If they agree they can fail, of course. Everything else would be betreyal to the group. Just make sure they are aware of having to watch what they are doing from that point on.
And quite interestingly... i have never experienced anybody refusing.
Why do you think Gygax designed something like the Tomb of Horrors?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTNUIhM0jyc
of course not. there was a dune 1
sim ant?
I actually have Dune 1. It's an... interesting game. It's like a combination of an RPG with the barest hints at being an RTS (though it was really more turn-based, it just presented it in a way that didn't make that fact stand out as much)
It's actually pretty fun too.
No, I'm assuming a game with persistent progression. WoW is merely one example.
Yes, actually. Any game whereing my progress can be irrevocably lost better damn well not cause it via technical fuck-ups. Since you cannot prevent technical fuckups, you better be damn careful how you implement your games' systems.
Yes - and live people are much better at this sort of thing than computers. Hence, tabletop roleplaying with a live DM works better at riding the razor edge of balance than a computer simulation of a tabletop roleplaying game.
You really don't know what you're talking about, do you?
Tomb of Horrors was designed as a convention module. It was, explicitly, a one-off occurence, played with characters you'll never touch again, to see how far you could get in a couple hours of play. Tomb of Horrors is the equivalent of an RPG boardgame. It had, originally, no real place as part of an ongoing campaign, specifically because it is an unmitigated deathtrap.
And, yes, I've actually talked with Gary himself about this, before he died, so my source is the man himself. (EN World boards, if you want to go looking for it.)
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Not really on strategy level, even if you can invade the house through the garden. But certainly a unique concept.
No, because shit happens. You don't eliminate a good concept and replace it with a crappy concept because shit could happen. You hope for the best... and in most cases... hey... its not death because of technical problems. However that is a prefered excuse for fucking up. Seriously... cats are much, much worse than lagspikes. Not to mention girlfriends or parents insisting on the trash being carried down RIGHT NOW ^^
Whoa, hold your horses ^^
Its correct that it was created as a convention module. Where people meet who love D&D.
Why the hell would they enter a deathtrap if they would not like the idea?
And the answer: they do. They really do. Its great fun. Because its interesting to see how far you get.
Now... you really can't run it twice because then you already know parts. Its something special, not to be used lightheartly and not to be wasted. The man is dead. Its a one shot setting. Use it wisely.
What would it be like to have a ever changing deathtrap?
Enter roguelikes. And if you are up to a challenge computers make great DM's. They are absoulutely fair. And here the question of a practicable concept and balance get raised.
Of course... only if you can handle the pressure of being really challenged and your char might die.
Its just a game.
This gives some interesting examples of earlier RTS titles. Not all of them have every element of what we'd consider a "modern RTS" but they all laid the groundwork before Dune 2.
That being said, Dune 2 only laid the groundwork for what was to follow. Just as an example - WarCraft 2 invented Fog of War, a standard in all modern RTS games. Genres are always borrowing from something. Even original ideas are never *completely* original. Pretty much every single game is innovating on something that has been done before.
Dune 1 was awesome. Nothing at all like the also fun Dune 2.
The problem with the RTS genre is that it didn't make the transition to consoles like the FPS genre. I actually have a few RTS games that were released on the Sega Genesis that work just fine.